It’s “Hermit Day”

Ahhh. The beautiful thought of complete solitude. Away from people, distractions, worries and all that other nonsense. Sounds good to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my family. I enjoy spending time with them. But there are times I fantasize about living on a large parcel of land in Wyoming (one of the least populous states in the US) in my log cabin, sitting in a chair on a front porch that has as many square feet as my living space, strumming a guitar and watching the antelope play. I don’t even have the inclination to yell out an echo-y “Hello-o-o-o” since there’s no one for miles around. Being away from it all brings serenity. It’s peaceful. And, in my Wyoming fantasy, I get to wear my cowboy boots all year long.

I’m ultimately a loner. I crave time by myself. I was actually looking forward to Madeline starting Kindergarten this year because I’d have a couple of days a week at home by myself. Again, don’t mistake this as my wanting to get rid of my kids, I just love having the time to be alone with my thoughts, read a book, maybe write a bit, but that damn cancer didn’t care. Ben has only been to school one full day this year, but thanks to cancer, he now does his classwork at home. Madeline is going to Kindergarten (when the flu isn’t going around) but she’s not happy about it. She was looking forward to going to school with her big brother. Maybe next year. 🙂

Madeline and I have been hermits for the past two days. We’re snowed in. I’d say we have about two feet of snow and I’ve yet to go outside and shovel. I’d usually leave the shoveling to Matt but seeing how he’s holed up at the hospital with Ben, well, we’ll continue to be snowed in.

We thought Ben might get sprung from the hospital today but his ANC is still too low (plus the snow storm would have made getting home a challenge). Ben was also out of platelets so they gave him a refill. He definitely doesn’t have the flu, which is outstanding, but they’re not letting him out of the hospital until his ANC comes up a bit more. I haven’t seen my Bean for two whole days. There goes the “fantasy” of being a hermit. I just couldn’t go without.

We did learn a bit more about upcoming treatment. Ben will finish up two more rounds of chemo and then head straight into radiation therapy. Dr. Greffe said that Ben will receive radiation to the area where his tumor was (called the tumor bed – a term I find slightly comical – like “nighty-night, tumor”) which was behind his heart. Ben will go each weekday (closed on weekends, because, of course, cancer takes the weekends off) for four weeks. Then, once he recovers from that, we’ll head out to NYC for antibody therapy.  Best guess on this time line will be mid-January. Yay! New York City in January? That sounds FUN! When reviewing the info from Sloan-Kettering, it looks like he’ll have one week of treatment in NYC and then three weeks off in Denver. Dr. Greffe thinks that while antibody therapy can continue for up to 24 months he’s under the impression that Ben will only go to NYC four times. Of course, this is all subject to change. It always is.

So, there’s the scoop. And while I often times want to crawl under a rock and live a hermit-like life, I know that I gotta suck it up and take the next step. Not only for Ben’s well-being, but for my sanity, too. Plus, the lack of personal hygiene from living under a rock would eventually get to me.

More later. 😉